Free Days
by RobinxRaven writer
Summary: A short story about Robin and Raven killing time. (Possibly a collection depending on how lazy I am)


Every time he looked at her, Robin was brought back to that night. The confusion, the fear, the anger, all of it came back to him at once day after day while they were at the tower and he was with her. It didn't matter if they spoke to each other or not, if someone else was with them in the room or not, being around her simply pulled him back. And in all honesty, even if Raven wasn't around he would still end up thinking about what had happened. He blamed his obsessive nature for his latest behaviour; before and after Slade's death, he'd been consumed by an unhealthy need to stop him. Now that he'd been resurrected and had gained powers, that need had naturally returned tenfold.

But that feeling was buried underneath something else, some greater feeling he didn't know the name of but massively outshone his hatred for Slade. It had taken him a while to realize that he was feeling something different, long after Raven's birthday had passed and they'd been forced to fight other villains and put Slade to one side while he was laying low. But even during those fights, even now while there was a lull in the crime wave, he was still thinking about what had happened.

" _It's been a couple of days and… I'd rather not do this, but I need your report on what happened." Robin said as she held the door open slightly to look at him. He had a clipboard in his left hand and a pen in his right. Raven nodded once and allowed him to step into her room, one of the few times she allowed anyone inside her private quarters. Robin sat down in the single chair at her desk and placed a tape recorder down, while she sat down on the edge of her bed, facing him. "Okay… After you stopped time, but before you came to me, did Slade say anything to you?"_

" _Yes. He told me that he knew about my destiny, and that there was no way I could stop it." She said as evenly as she could. Still, her hands clenched into fists and it didn't escape his notice._

" _That's all he said?" She nodded and he continued. "Okay. After you stopped time, we were attacked by Slade and forced to flee due to his new powers. You and I found refuge in an empty church where you told me that something terrible was supposed to happen on your birthday. Can you elaborate more on that?"_

 _Raven shook her head fiercely. "I can't. I don't know the exact details."_

" _Alright. After you told me about your birthday, Slade found and attacked us and I was incapacitated briefly, and you were forced to flee. What happened to you?" Robin asked._

" _I tried to get away from him, but I couldn't. When he caught up to me, he told me that he had a message he was going to deliver and that he'd be in touch. He didn't give me any clue what that message might be." Raven said quietly._

 _The room went silent for a moment, save for the scratching of Robin's pen against paper. "Before you fled the church, I noticed that your uniform was torn, and where it had been torn there were red glowing symbols that aren't normally there. Can you tell me what those are?" Raven shook her head. Robin grit his teeth, gripping the pen in his hand tightly. "And when I caught up to you, Slade had torn off your cape and more of your uniform, exposing your back and your stomach. Was this done in an attempt to expose those symbols?"_

 _Raven reached forward, placing a hand over his to stop it from shaking. "Yes. That's all it was."_

 _Robin swallowed hard, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. Raven made sure he was calm before she pulled back from him. "Slade also had a glowing symbol on his mask that hadn't been there before. It looked like the symbols on your arms and wrists. Do you have any idea if there's a connection there?"_

" _No." Raven said as she looked to the ground._

" _Okay. That's all for now." He said as he reached over and shut the recorder off. He put the pen and clipboard down on the desk, then turned back to Raven. "How are you feeling? Are you okay?"_

 _She nodded slowly, but didn't say anything. Candles flew around the room and lit themselves. Raven stood from her bed and walked into the circle they had formed. "I need to meditate."_

" _...I'll get out of your hair."_

That had been almost two weeks ago. It had been the last time he'd spoken aloud of the events that had happened that night. But as he stood over his cluttered desk in the investigation room, Robin knew those memories were far from gone and they'd probably never go away.

He closed his eyes, thinking back to his brief skirmish with Slade. He'd told Raven to run and put himself between her and Slade. He knew he wasn't a match for Slade's new powers; he'd never actually won a fight with Slade on his own before, so he couldn't say he'd been surprised when Slade had defeated hm, lifting a boulder out of the ground and catching him off guard with it. But that didn't matter to him. All that mattered was buying Raven time to get her away from Slade and whatever he had planned for her, even if it cost him his life. Which it very nearly had. But this time, it was different from how he normally put his life on the line for the other Titans when they were fighting. And again, it was the feeling from before, the one that made his hatred for Slade seem insignificant in comparison. He didn't realize at the time, but he'd felt it back then, too.

And just like that, he knew what that feeling was. It came to him with such clarity that he was starting to wonder why it had taken him this long to figure it out.

The door to the investigation room opened, and he turned around. "Thought I'd find you down here." Raven said as she stepped inside and the door closed behind her. "You know, you'll get really pale if you never get out of this room. Or if you don't install some windows."

Robin smiled briefly before he turned back around to the desk. "Do you need something?"

"Yes. I want to ask you how you're doing now that Slade's back." Raven asked, straight to the point.

"I want to stop him, as I'm sure you can guess." Robin replied, trying to keep his voice calm.

Raven came to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him to face her. "We all guessed that. But this time, there's something different about you. Your attitude. I may be an empath, but there is a limit to how much I can read another person. What's going on?"

Taking his mask off and setting it to the side, Robin kept his eyes on the table. "I'm not sure you want to know the truth. And I'm not sure I want to admit it." He said quietly.

She swallowed hard. If she tried to convince him to tell her anyways, she'd be a hypocrite and she knew it. Raven hadn't revealed everything Slade had told her and shown her to Robin. She didn't want to admit what she'd seen out of fear. Shaking her head and placing her other hand on his shoulder, she steeled her resolve. She might turn her back on her destiny, but she wasn't going to turn her back her friends. "Robin… Slade nearly took you away from us once. Then he nearly killed you from beyond the grave while I _felt_ it happening. Now that he's back and worse than ever, I want to know what your plan is."

Robin kept his eyes down for a moment before he looked at her, straightening up and taking a small step forward. "That night, when Slade went after you and I tried to stop him… I broke his neck. If it wasn't for… whatever he's turned into, he'd be dead." Raven's eyes widened, but before she could respond he continued. "Slade used to scare me, Raven, but seeing him chase after you when there was nothing I could do terrified me in a way that I can't explain." His voice had lowered to just above a whisper, and even though he knew she might try and pull back, Robin wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. "I'm going to stop him. No matter what."

"You won't go that far." She whispered into his ear as her head rested on his shoulder. Raven shifted so her arms were more comfortable, wrapping them around his chest. "You never have before. You've never needed to."

"Slade's always been the worst of them, Raven. It would be different if he was coming after all of us, or just me, but I won't let him-" His voice caught in his throat, and he held Raven tighter as he leaned back a little, looking her in the eye. "I won't let him take you away from me."

"He won't." Raven whispered, almost on reflex. "We've stopped him before. We'll stop him again. And you won't have to kill him." For the moment, her destiny was forgotten as she tried to reassure Robin that she wasn't going anywhere, clutching his uniform as his resolve washed over her, trying to fill her with the determination that he was feeling. It scared her as she realized how far he was willing to go, and _had_ gone before if he was telling the truth. And she knew he wasn't lying; Robin really had tried to kill Slade in order to protect her.

For a moment Robin was silent, and just when she thought he was about to respond, he leaned forward and gently kissed her forehead, just above the gem. Stunned, Raven did nothing except gasp and hold still, eyes flicking down at the red of his shirt while she tried to stay calm. Even though it hadn't been expected, the gesture ended sooner than Raven wanted, before she could really catalogue all the subtleties of his touch and the reactions he'd caused. Robin pulled back and raised a hand, gently pushing her hair back behind her ear, then pulled her back into the hug and closed his eyes. Holding her close like this helped to soothe his emotions and calm him down, and he didn't want to let go just yet.

~For You~

A/N

I was rewatching "Birthmark" when this idea came to me. Not sure why it didn't come to me sooner, but oh well. Either way, in that episode Robin totally breaks Slade's neck while trying to protect Raven. I guess that technically you can break someone's neck without killing them (?), but I'm not a doctor so I wouldn't know. Slade does the stereotypical thing of twisting his neck back into place while you can hear the bones twisting just to let you know that Robin really went there. I thought it a little weird that Robin never addresses the fact that he "crossed the line", but I guess would've been too serious for a cartoon back in the day. Oh well, it let me write this story, didn't it?


End file.
